


Still Ahead

by Ladycat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Marriage Proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-12 03:21:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'm kinda happy about it, myself. They don't let married people go through Stargates."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still Ahead

There's little brine to the scent of the ocean. John knows he could find one of the scientists to explain to him why that is, but he doesn't bother. Atlantis is on another planet in another galaxy; he doesn't _care_ why.

Instead, he just takes a deep breath, savoring the swept-clean feel of it in his lungs, and exhales. "Are you smoking?"

The balcony curves around the tower, obscuring John's vision, but never his awareness. About this, he has sixth and seventh senses, all of them hard-won.

"Go away."

"What, don't you know the dangers?" Since Mohamad isn't coming to the mountain, John saunters down the length of the balcony to lean hip and elbow against a new section of railing. Rodney is highlighted in blues and whites from the Atlantean's version of flood lights. Smoke plumes from his nostrils as he blows a perfect smoke-ring.

It's disturbingly hot.

"Forget about the cancer," John continues, because it's unusual for him to have such an obvious chance like this. "Because, you know -- _cancer_. Black lungs, radiation, _tumors_... " It's having no effect. "There's also the way your clothes stink and, sorry McKay, but your breath is not minty-fresh enough on a normal basis. Add tar to that and I'll be requisitioning a ton of certs."

Still nothing. A disturbing lack of nothing. John's good at producing _mou_ s of distaste along with the rarer half-shadowed smiles he's learned to treasure. He's not used to no change whatsoever.

"Did I mention the cancer parts?"

"It's September first. Back there."

Okay, non-sequitur. After two years of living in each other's pockets, conversational curve-balls are par for the course, and John normally knows how to handle those: with a few random lines of his own, or looking blankly interested. Ladies particularly liked that.

But this isn't a random non-sequitur, the kind he's used to. This one has some weight to it, a history and depth, involving currents John knows he doesn't know how to navigate. "On Earth, you mean?"

"No, on Mars. Yes, of course on Earth. It's September first, two thousand and six. Do you know, I'm a genius, and I still have to count backwards to get the subtraction right? It's bizarre. So is the amount of chocolate I had to give up to buy this off of Simpson." Rodney takes another slow drag, blowing it out slowly.

It occurs to John that Rodney's using the smoke to obscure his face. Rodney's an open book most days, transparent the rest, so he's learned to use tricks and gimmicks when he wants privacy.

Maybe even privacy from John? That could explain why it'd taken him almost an hour to figure out where Rodney had disappeared to, finally resorting to the life-signs detector, methodically eliminating the dots that were in ones or twos. It wouldn't be the first time Rodney had wanted to be by himself, of course, but he's been moody all day and this is the first time John doesn't know _why_ \-- not even if it's just Rodney's equivalent of PMS.

This... this is different. This is _sad_.

John shifts uncomfortably. He's good at Rodney-wrangling but there are some things he's just not equipped for and he knows it. "So, uh. Do you maybe want to go inside, because I'm getting cold so I'm just gonna -- "

"I was married."

He freezes.

"Her name was Kathryn. Kathryn McKay. Well, Kathryn McGee, actually, and don't make the obvious comment because believe me, she made it for you, over a dozen times. The woman was a monogramming fiend."

John suppresses the desire to tug at his collar like a school boy. "Uh huh?"

Rodney lets the hand with the cigarette dangle over the railing. "You can leave, you know. No one asked you to come find me. In fact, I very pointedly asked you _not_ to, although I doubt you remember because you were too busy ogling Lorne's new gun. God, can't you at least ogle tits like a normal person?"

John's aunt had had four girls. Even when they didn't live close, his mother had always made certain to have long, frequent vacations where she and her sister could sip drinks on the porch while John chaperoned his cousins.

He _knows_ this kind of behavior. Hell, he's written manuals on how to avoid it.

Coming from Rodney, though, who doesn't have the subtlety for passive-aggressiveness, it means something different than when his cousin Jenn had sniffed and told him that of _course_ she hadn't really wanted that brand new nail polish he'd forgotten to get for her. It means something serious.

John lets both elbows come down on the railing with a silent sigh. "Was married?"

Rodney takes another drag, and neither of them comment on how the cherry glow trembles en route to his mouth. "It didn't take."

Wedding day. Or divorce day. Or hell, the day whoever it was first popped the question, weeks or months before it was ever legally true. John's been around enough to know that all those days carry their own burdens, and everybody reacts to them differently.

"Was it this bad last year?" he asks. _Before us_ , is the unspoken rider, because Rodney is blunt and brave and arrogant and as certain as anything John's ever seen -- but he's got insecurities, just like anyone else.

"No. But not -- I mean it was -- "

"Yeah," John says, already counting back in his head. "Ford."

Rodney nods, the frantic bob conveying gratitude that's only a little pathetic. "Yeah. Being terrified that your team is going to become addicts and-or die on a hive ship takes precedence."

And the year before that, John knows, they'd been so new to Atlantis, so busy with the wonders and dangers they were uncovering, that something like nostalgia would've taken a back seat. A fleeting memory, not something to consume and dwell on, the way their current stretch of uneasy peace allows for.

A thought occurs to him. "So, uh, yesterday, in the labs?"

They're still cleaning smoke from the walls and fortunately, Harrison looks good bald as an egg. Rodney winces, a bit of ash falling off the cigarette. "Yeah. I'm reassigning myself to less volatile projects for the next few days."

"Coming with us to P3X-997?" If Rodney says he's not, John won't fuss. He'll miss him, and probably regret it because he always does. But there are some lines he knows better than to cross.

Rodney turns to look at him for the first time. "Is this going to be a problem? I mean, that I was -- what I was?"

"Yes, Rodney, I'm appalled and will hold the information that you've actually known the love of a good woman against you. Er. She was a good woman, right?" He knows he looks dorky, nervous and trying for funny, but that's usually a good look with Rodney so he doesn't bother trying to mask it.

There's no snort, which is odd, since it's Rodney's usual reaction, but there is a tiny hint of a smile, mobile mouth twisting like a cork-screw. Another drag is taken, the end burning brightly. "She was. It was -- different."

Below them, water laps at Atlantis' edges. It's only when the tides are roughest that there's the crash of true waves, and even then, distance keeps them muted. "What split you two up?"

Rodney's chuckle is low and amused, a sound usually reserved for John -- who is trying very hard to not be jealous. "Work, actually. In a way. _We_ worked very well together."

The way he and Rodney do now, John understands, tamping down another surge of jealousy over a woman who hasn't been in Rodney's life for many years. "So, what, different jobs in different countries?"

"Oh, no, nothing like that. Well, that is a serious issue for married scientists, of course, but she worked at Area 51 when I did, so that wasn't a problem."

John waits a few moments. "And?"

"Hm? Oh. She, ah. She decided she wanted to study botany. Alien botany, to be precise, which is not exactly an unworthy use of her time and her advances in certain herbs being used as medicine is phenomenal, Radek sent me a memo about it, the trials are coming along -- um. What? You're staring."

"You divorced because she went into _botany?"_

All the animation previously lighting Rodney's face disappears so fast it's like a table cloth yanked from under unmoving plates. "No. That's just why we started fighting. She didn't understand why I wouldn't go to work with her, why I couldn't see that what she was doing was so much more important then theoretical physics that might never have practical applications."

She didn't -- John stops, rewinding that sentence in his head again. He had been prepared to believe Rodney had belittled her choices, driving a wedge between them with his disdain for what he called squishy sciences.

Now John wonders if he'd been so dismissive of those sciences, before.

Probably at least a little.

"Do you miss her?"

Rodney's still looking at him, eyes colorless in the night. He blinks, slowly. "Sometimes," he says and then hands the cigarette over to John.

John takes it, inhaling deeply. He's never been a smoker. Pilots have other vices, but it's a social activity so he's had more than a few over the years: he doesn't cough and the burn that eats the back of his throat feels good. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not." The response is prompt enough to be gratifying, even if it has nothing to do with Atlantis or John. "I mean, yes, boo-hoo, I miss her, but I miss other people -- well, no, okay, I don't miss _many_ people, but I do miss some, and anyway the point is that it... wasn't a bad thing. It was a _good_ thing."

He doesn't sound like he's trying to convince himself of that, which makes something in John's chest loosen. "I'm kinda happy about it, myself. They don't let married people go through Stargates."

"Not often, anyway, no."

John offers the last of the cigarette to Rodney, sucking down the final bit himself when Rodney shakes his head. The butt flutters as it drifts down towards the ocean. He wonders if it'll land on yet more Atlantis or the water. "Huh. You know, I think we just littered."

"You mean _you_ just littered. I was going to throw it away." Rodney's not moving, though. He's just staring out, at the ocean, the skin of his forearms indented where he's leaning on them.

Carefully, John slips his arm in next to Rodney's, linking his hands together slightly to one side. Heat bleeds past his shirt, radiating through his chest.

It's not hand-holding. But he's pretty sure both of them feel better like this.

"There are sleeping bags," he offers.

"I'm coming on the next mission."

John nods. He'll get the bags in a moment, and let Elizabeth know they'll be on light duty for the next day or two. It's quiet enough that they can afford it. But for now, he can stand here next to Rodney, looking over a planet that's theirs in a way Earth never was.

"Yeah," he says. "I know you are."


End file.
